The schedule’s been shuffled a bit with the Baseball America Top-30 prospects lists. The Giants are being revealed today instead of Feb. 4. I’ll be chatting live on the BA site at 1:30 p.m. (PST) today, so please surf on over and deposit some questions!

The Giants have scheduled a media conference call tomorrow with Will Clark, presumably to announce that he’s returning to the organization in some capacity. Not certain what Clark’s duties will entail, but it could resemble J.T. Snow’s amalgam of coach/broadcaster/special assistant.

My endless summer had to end sometime, but it’s good to be back in the Northern hemisphere. I’ll try not to slip into any cricket jargon.

A lot of Giants goings-on today. The club invited reporters to the ballpark for afternoon chats with frontline relievers Bob Howry, Jeremy Affeldt and Brian Wilson. You’ll hear more about them a little later.

But the day began with Jeff Kent’s sniffly retirement speech. Then I dialed into Omar Vizquel’s conference call with Texas Rangers reporters. It reminded me that the rarest thing among professional baseball players is the opportunity to exit on their terms. Even the great ones aren’t always afforded that chance.

It might have surprised you that a classic red ass like Jeff Kent would be so emotional during his retirement news conference. But it didn’t catch Rich Aurilia off-guard.

“When you do it for so long, if you’re a player and you watch that conference, a lot of it hits home,” Aurilia told me. “ I remember when he first got here. His daughter was 2. Now she’s 12. I remember the birth of his other kids. Their whole life, they’re used to daddy being away playing games.”

I think reader “Sabean sucks” said it best in his recent comment when he stated, “Because the Giants were not smart in their signings of Winn, Zito & Rowand to name a few, they can’t go full bore with Ramirez.” He did forget the brilliant signing of Dave Roberts, but you get the idea. The problem is, these bad signings go WAY beyond just the money.

One of the problems the Giants would have with Ramirez in left is his awful defense. Of course, it wouldn’t be that big a problem if they had a center fielder who could cover an area bigger than a postage stamp. For those of you who think the Giants have a shot of trading Rowand, forget it. It was almost impossible before the economy tanked, now it would take a miracle.

I was just watching ESPN and across the bottom of the screen I see, “Denver Post reports Giants going after Manny Ramirez.” If this happens, it would immediately make the Giants World Series contenders in ’09.

The one thing I hope is: if they’re serious, they can keep it to no more than a 2 year deal. A three year deal would not be a disaster, especially since there really aren’t any outfield prospects who will be blocked by this, but two years would be perfect in so many ways.

First off, it KILLS the Dodgers. They weren’t exactly burning up the league before they landed Manny. How good are they going to be without him (not to mention Lowe, Penney, Saito and Kent).

Third, it still keeps the decks cleared for 2011 when the best prospects will be ready to roll and the depth will allow the Giants to trade for a YOUNG power hitter. A four year deal for Manny would be a disaster.

The Giants came into the offseason with three weaknesses. 1. The bullpen; 2. Depth in the starting rotation and 3. Improve the offense. Even without Manny, Sabean has fixed numbers 1 and 2. With Renteria, he made a start on number 3.

For those of you who think Sabean wasn’t actually looking for a power hitter, I just think he wasn’t willing to throw good money at mediocre players (Dunn, Burrell) who can’t carry a team and he wasn’t willing to just panic and give away a good young pitcher. Manny can carry a team and would only cost money.

Plus, with the weakness in the economy and the free agent market, sitting and waiting is not a bad strategy. It could be a good time to “Buy low.” Let’s hope this Manny rumor is not just a rumor.